Chamber music ensemble Trio de Llano to perform at WCU

A free guest artist concert beginning at 8 p.m. Monday, Oct. 4, at Western Carolina University Coulter Building recital hall will feature The Trio de Llano, a chamber music ensemble based at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, La.

The Trio de Llano features Dennette McDermott on flute, Malena McLaren on clarinet and Douglas Bakenhus on bassoon. The ensemble was founded in August 2004 in an effort to promote and actively perform the unique chamber music repertoire for this often overlooked combination of instruments, said Eldred Spell, professor of flute at WCU.

Each member of Trio de Llano is a full-time faculty member at Northwestern State University. Past performances include recitals at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of North Texas, and the University of New Mexico. In addition, the trio has received grants to perform in the Slovak and Czech Republics; Victoria, British Columbia; Manchester, England; and the National Flute Association New York Convention.

This Must Be the Place

Standing in line at the Old Europe coffee shop in downtown Asheville, I said that to my old friend, Jerica. It was a rainy Sunday evening and we’d just gotten out of a documentary screening (about Tim Leary and Ram Dass) at the Grail Moviehouse. While I was mulling over the cosmic nature and theme of the film and what our place is in the universe (as per usual), I looked over at Jerica and smiled.

Reading Room

Of course, we’re intended to read from cover to cover many books — novels, histories, biographies, and more. It would make little sense to begin Mark Helprin’s novel A Soldier of the Great War on page 340 of its 860 pages. We might open and commence reading Paul Hendrickson’s Hemingway’s Boat, on page 241, but we’d miss some of the…